These are the ongoing adventures of the MAKE Sales and Marketing team, as we build our maker skill sets… pretty much from scratch. To read about how MAKE Sales Camp came to be, go here.

My masterpiece.

Up until now at MAKE Sales Camp, it’s been all fun and games. We did a little programming, a little building, had some laughs, and everyone went home feeling good. But today at Camp, things stopped being fun– and started getting REAL.

Camp Director Nick Raymond, knowing what today’s task would demand of us, left us in the capable hands of the only intern man enough for the job: the Sultan of Solder, Brian Melani. Our task? Using only a soldering iron and a steady hand, populate a servo motor shield with capacitors, resistors, and integrated circuits.

This basic soldering task seemed like child’s play at first, but after the first dozen solder joints, tensions began to escalate. Attention to detail was essential. Perfection: the only option. In the end, the pressure proved too much… for some.

Professional demeanor was compromised. Dignity was left by the wayside. Tears were shed.

(OK, no tears, but there were definitely some colorful expressions tossed around the lab.)

It’s all in the wrist…

Once we were finally able to regain our composure, we emerged from the cloud of solder fumes we had created and all came to the same conclusion: Putting this board together was harder than we thought! Getting all those tiny parts lined up, making sure we knew which capacitors were polarized, and most of all, having a steady yet quick hand (no bridges!!)… sheesh! I definitely earned a new respect for our Engineering interns today.

In the end, it took an iron will (and a rosin core)– but we all managed to get our servo shields put together (reasonably) correctly. High Fives all around!

But our future is still uncertain: Will our shields hold up when we hook them up to our Arduinos? Do we have what it takes for the more advanced maker skills that lay ahead?

Will yours truly crack the color code for differentiating resistor values and become totally awesome??